


These Passing Bells

by die_traumerei



Series: Home is the Soldier [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, a touch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5000809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/die_traumerei/pseuds/die_traumerei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky did not expect proposing to be quite so terrifying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Passing Bells

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the last story in this series! I've been sitting on this for...a really long time? I had originally wanted to write a lot more, but it never quite came, and this feels like a good ending for these boys. I do love them, and I *really* loved writing an epistolary story, but I think they've run their course.
> 
> So, because it's me, have a happy ending.

“Is this a dealbreaker?” Nat asked.

“What?” Bucky blinked a few times. It wasn't like Nat was known for pulling her punches but – what?

“Is this a dealbreaker?” she repeated slowly, in her 'I am too patient' voice. “Between you and Steve.”

“What? No. Oh my God, no. No no no.” Bucky stared at her, dumbfounded. “We're fighting more than usual, and we're both stressed, and it's not exactly a surprise with something this big. Jesus, no, it's not a dealbreaker!”

Nat held up her hands. “Just asking, dude, not accusing or anything.”

“Fuck, sorry. I know.” Bucky shoved his hair back. “Dealbreaker. God. I'd sooner...”

Nat grinned. “What?”

“No. It's tacky, even for me.”

“C'mon,” she cooed. “I'll buy your next drink.”

“Hell no.”

“Buck-y.” He voice was soft and fluttery and was doing things to him and how did she even do that? “You can tell your Auntie Nat.”

“Natasha, I cannot tell you how terrifying the thought of you being related to me is,” Bucky said seriously. 

“You're no fun. I just wanna hear it from your own mouth about how you almost told me you'd rather lose a limb than lose Steve.”

“For fuck's sake!” Bucky did not spit-take his beer, but it was a close thing. “How'd you guess?”

Nat gave him an opaque look.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You know how you invited me to work with your shadowy governmental organization?”

“Yes?”

“I wanna know your competitor, so I can go work for them instead.”

Nat snickered. “That would...probably be the Russian government. How do you like cold weather?”

“I don't. Also I probably couldn't bring my very male boyfriend,” Bucky said dryly. “Damn.”

“Uh huh. So, getting back to my main point – this isn't a dealbreaker, then?”

“No, it really isn't. I can't...I don't even know what would be,” Bucky said quietly. “Steve's just...look, losing him wouldn't be exactly like losing a limb, but fuck me, I can't...I can't imagine it, you know?”

“Honey, anyone who looks at the two of you together knows,” Nat said, and smiled at him, one of her real smiles, rare and lovely as anything. “So when you gonna propose?”

“When the time is right. I'll know,” Bucky said. “I just...I'll know.”

“Not gonna go all out with a fancy dinner?” she asked, and laughed at the look this earned her. “Good boy.”

“Smart boy,” Bucky corrected. “It's Steve. I'd wind up with a lecture from Dr. Rogers on...I don't know, something. And he'd probably remember to say yes somewhere in there, but it's easier for everyone if I just ask him in the middle of doing the dishes some night, you know?”

“I know,” she agreed. “And I think catching him off-guard is the best idea. No worries about him saying yes?”

“Natasha Romanov, I'm dumb about a lot of things, but I see how he looks at me,” Bucky said. “He's it for me, and I'm it for him, god help us both.”

Nat grinned, and raised her glass. “Can I be your bridesmaid?”

“Nah, but I've got an opening for mother of the bride?” Bucky snickered, and they clinked glasses. “Of course, honey, I wouldn't have anyone else.”

“You're right, you are smart,” Nat said smugly.

* * *

“Honey, I'm home,” Bucky called, hanging his bag up by the door.

“In here,” Steve yelled from the bedroom, and Bucky went in, and managed to not fall over laughing. Steve was making the bed. The bed was winning.

“Oh fuck off and grab a corner of the fitted sheet. You're the one that wanted this giant-ass bed anyway,” Steve grumbled.

“You're the one whose cold feet I am now a whole yard away from if I want to be,” Bucky pointed out, grabbing a corner of the fitted sheet and tucking it into place. “Why are you making the bed?”

“Because that's what adults do?” Steve shoved his too-long bangs out of his eyes and made a face at the comforter on the floor. “I took that to the dry-cleaner and everything.” He turned and glared at Bucky. “Would you like to help, or shall I exist solely to amuse you?”

And fuck, this was it. This was it. His fluffy-haired boyfriend who got angry at everything up to and including most inanimate objects, who had said yes of course come on in when the guy he'd barely met, let alone started dating, showed up on US soil eight months early and an arm short. The man who gave him hell every day and who cuddled up with his head in Bucky's lap when they watched TV together, all five-foot-four wheezy and sick too much and perfect. The man who made him better in every way. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Bucky swallowed hard and tried to think of it as helping Steve put the bed back together, not chickening out. He had rehearsed this, and it was the perfect moment and Nat had said Steve would say yes and Bucky was pretty sure he would but what if he didn't? What if they'd fought too much, if he'd said he wanted to be normal one time too many and Steve had decided that Bucky was all wrong for him, and what if Steve was right that they weren't meant to be and what if he said no? If he didn't think they should get married?

Bucky took a deep breath, and threw himself in. Nothing else for it. “Hey Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Um.” He swallowed, and went for broke. If he was gonna go out, he was gonna go out big. “Since I'm gonna have a left hand soon with the prosthetic and all, I was thinkin', maybe you'd see your way to putting a ring on it? On one finger in particular, I mean.” His heart was pounding, Jesus, war hadn't been this terrifying. Life or death shit was easy compared to proposing, lucky he'd only have to do it once. Probably. “And...and you could let me put a ring on your hand. In return. Uh.”

Steve was frozen in place, staring at him and shit, all the words had come out in the right order, right? Yeah, they had. He was like....seventy percent sure.

He should've bribed Natasha to ask for him. This. This was why people had go-betweens. A glorious custom. Bucky should have revived it. Because Steve was still standing there, just...staring. At Bucky.

“Please?” he tried, starting to feel a little desperate.

This must have shaken something free because suddenly Steve was moving, crossing the small space between them and taking Bucky's hand in his and smiling oh thank God he was smiling up at Bucky, his glasses askew and his hair a mess and he was grinning and beautiful and going up on tip-toe to wrap his arms around Bucky's neck and press his mouth to Bucky's ear and yes, he was saying yes, he was saying yes.

“Yes yes yes,” he repeated, drum-beat steady. “Of course. Bucky, I love you, of course I'll marry you.” He laughed and turned Bucky's jaw a little, forcing him to meet Steve's eyes. “Are you with me, baby?”

“Uh. Um. Yes. Yes!” Bucky laughed and picked Steve up, lopsided but still strong, and whirled him around. “You said yes!”

“Did you think I wouldn't?” Steve asked, when Bucky had put him down again.

“Uh. I was pretty sure you'd say yes until I actually asked,” Bucky admitted. He sat down and laughed, this time in relief. “God, that's terrifying.”

“Lucky you got it over with, then.” Steve knelt down between Bucky's knees, arms looping around his waist. “Saved me the trouble.”

“What were you gonna do?” Bucky asked.

“The whole nine yards,” Steve admitted, turning a rather pleasing shade of red. “Rent a cabin in the woods, get a really really nice meal set up, good wine, all of it. Ask you in front of the fire, down on one knee, champagne, you name it.”

“Stevie...” Bucky leaned over and kissed him, lingering despite himself. “I don't need all that.”

“Yeah. But you deserve it.” Steve smiled, and hugged him tight. “I like this better.”

“I didn't plan anything but what I would say,” Bucky admitted. “I just...I reckoned I'd know the right moment, and I did.” He smiled shyly. “Do you want a nice dinner and all that?”

“Yeah, but not right now. And you were right. This is perfect.” Steve snuggled close, pressing kisses along Bucky's jaw. “Just us, and our home, and our bed, and just...us. The way we always are. Bucky, you're brilliant.”

Bucky laughed, and pulled Steve up onto the bed and lay back, the slight weight above him all that kept him grounded. “Shut up. We're still doing the cabin and the champagne and everything else. Just...another time.”

“Good. Now is us, and our bed,” Steve murmured, and they didn't get up for some long time after.

**Author's Note:**

> The bells of the title technically refer to a death toll (and as they're from a Wilfred Owen poem, fit with the rest of the series), but I think, taken out of context, they could go either way. Steve and Bucky's whole relationship has been kind of bittersweet; so should their engagement, I guess.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and loving this AU! It means a great deal to me.
> 
> dietraumerei.tumblr.com


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